Destination Unknown
From Carpool Karaoke singing "Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby Soho!" and pro wrestling to living an adventure in service
I’ve too often told the story that my dreams as a child were to be Indiana Jones, a Pirate, or a Pro Wrestler. While those would change, the one thing that didn’t was my desire to help others and a belief that the world could be better, which a ‘better’ word for that would be healthier (Shout out to C. Mamo).
The other night we were watching Carpool Karaoke and Bev chose the episode that featured a number of AEW Wrestlers. If you don’t know, AEW is full of former WWE and Indie Stars, who may or may not have also been a part of the WWE at some point in the past. They disrupted Pro Wrestling over the last few years and the industry has been better because of that.
One star on the show was Ruby Soho, formerly Ruby Riott. I didn’t realize it but she took her name after her entrance song, “Ruby Soho” by Rancid, not the Jimmy Cliff take. That track came on and the wrestlers in the car all jammed out to it. It was a pretty entertaining episode to say the least and the silly song has been stuck in my head since. So much so that I had to look up the lyrics because I couldn’t really make out the “Destination Unknown” being sung throughout the episode and my subsequent listening to try and figure it out.
Destination, Unknown.
One of my favorite parts of Pro Wrestling is the intro, when the entrance music hits and the announcer in near operatically dramatic fashion says the name of the competitor and where s/he is from, it sets the stage for the story of the match. Part of the wrestler’s story is her/his origin, both backstory and where s/he has come from, with a number of mysterious wrestlers “hailing from Parts Unknown.”
As a kid, I’d see that, and found it intriguing, and usually the character was haunted or had something supernatural going on. Little did I know the spiritual elements would also be quite intriguing in life for me…
Fast forward and the realization that childhood dreams may not be reality sets in rather quickly. Where I once found the unknown, and the uncertainty it brought, such as that seen a wrestling match, entertaining, I felt a fear of said TBD. But more repetitions with loss and change (coupled with observations of world rhythms and reading tomes of past folks trying to understand the walk upon Life’s Road) teaches that the Unknown is kind of like our real BFF.
In my first book (SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION ALERT READ IT BUT DON’T READ IT BECAUSE I’VE GROWN SO MUCH SINCE IT BREATHED LIFE SO I SHAKE MY HEAD AT SOME PARTS), I thought of Death as a BFF. In that manuscript, I explored my experiences of Death, both in the form of passing on to the next level of the simulation (jk- or is it?) and Death as Change. With the time that has passed since, said additional experiences of loss, change, and physical death, a new filter of reality is that the when we embrace the Unknown, we can be released from many of the internal chains that bind.
One of my earlier mentors had often stressed:
Expect the unexpected.
That’s just Life. My addition to that would:
Expect the unexpected so much that it surprises you when you’re surprised!
Rewind to January 01, 2020, we didn’t know we’d be wandering through this Covid diet dystopian future - diet because where are the flying cars and Back to the Future Instant Pizzas?!?! - that we find ourselves in.
But just because the image of a dream doesn’t play out how we think it might, that doesn’t mean part of the unexpected, unknown, uncertain is that things could actually work out rather better and still connect back to where you began.
“Follow the invisible thread” as my teacher has said to me many times.
Small kid time Me had no idea my childhood dreams foretold of having an adventure (Indiana Jones, Pirate, and Pro Wrestler) in service (help others). And yet, the adult nurturing my Inner Child Me can confirm that’s what it’s been.
Let’s look into one facet of my life - work - as an example.
I currently work in the CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods industry), for a company tackling sustainability and giving back to those in need, a vastly different experience than the non-profit world and opera, where I was in the eight years before I began this chapter. In the decade prior to that and since finishing college, I provided spiritual consultations from reading energy and interpreting dreams to mostly holding space and listening to people, ran marketing and pr campaigns for small business owners, worked for the US Census Bureau, saw the inner workings of the political process with The House of Representatives at the Hawai'i State Capitol, had my barista moment at Starbucks, and worked University of Hawai'i and Hawai'i Pacific University, with a stop in grocery to start it all.
Wild!
Each stop on this journey has had its share of highs and lows.
There were also a couple of stops that didn’t make the cut of that run-on sentence a few lines ago. These were mainly short-lived, largely negative and forgettable, but nonetheless full of teachable moments.
It’s the accumulation of each of those moments which prepare us for the next. Concurrent to developing my work career, I’ve been working on myself.
Half a lifetime ago without so many data points of experience to reference, it was honestly harder to find and maintain joy. I reflected on grief and navigating depression in my last writing here but it’s finding joy that I get back to with each cycle into depression and hopefully, being able to maintain those seasons a bit longer each time.
Something that has stuck out to me along the way is the recognition that we have so many moving parts, that our lives are always in flux. It’s easy for me to look at work because I’ve long identified and sought rewarding work but work isn’t the only area where some sense of achievement or arrival was taught to be necessary in order to enjoy life.
I’ve spent so much time being conditioned to chase that noise and if I fell short, the noise reached another level of less than optimal self-talk. When we are inundated with messaging, it can be deafening to hear the Truth that can only be found within.
I cringe sometimes thinking at how misled I was to believe that I’d be happy when I arrived.
Arrived at:
Dream job with purpose
Attained a Master’s Degree
Marriage with 1.85 kids
A dog
A homeowner
All of the above
by 25!
But when none of that happened or I arrived somewhere on the list just not mentioned here but still a sense of des[air, it became:
A this!
A that!
A WTF are you telling me to do now?!?!
In times where the noise has been full blast, I’ve felt overwhelmed and like I was spiraling. All those things telling me what would make me happy when I arrived didn’t help. If I could somehow convey all the sound that occurs between my ears, wow, just wow, it’s sound that moves faster than the speed of light.
The realization - we are who we are, as we are, where we are - is one that has helped me to embrace the unfolding of my life, to move more gracefully through the ‘meh’ and to really be present and embrace the ‘yay’ as I navigate the noise and the unknown.
I have to say, there’s been a freedom that allowing uncertainty brings.
All the many twists, turns, and allowing myself to fall deeper into the embrace of the unknown, merely by releasing resistance to the moment as it manifests, has helped me to feel more firm and solid.
Please note: I’m still working on that.
But knowing what it feels like to feel free and at peace with the unknown is like having a light to look too in the distance when all around feels dark.
It’s fascinating.
It’s humbling.
It’s awe-inspiring because it all takes me back to the connection to the Higher Power, that God is Love (Aloha ke Akua), and that the experience of such is something that can lift no matter what.
When I look back at my lowest points, I’ve always been able to keep a spark of hope alit and I have to think it’s because I could feel that connection in the distance through the Darkness. And perhaps because I was connected from the get, those dreams were but seeds that have blossomed as have I.
Soul let that connection guide and surely it doesn’t matter where the destination ahead lies. Whether known, unknown, something else yet to be written or read, you’re already there because you’re being held by something more, perhaps Divine.
A hui hou and thanks for being out there.